This is an artist’s impression of connected CRISPR-dCas9 NOR gates. Credit: University of Washington

Synthetic biology researchers have demonstrated a new method for digital information processing in living cells, analogous to the logic gates used in electric circuits. The circuits are the largest ever published to date in eurkaryotic cells and a key step in harnessing the potential of cells as living computers that can respond to disease, efficiently produce biofuels or develop plant-based chemicals.

Through billions of years of trial and error, evolution has arrived at a mode of information processing at the cellular level. In the microchips that run our computers, information processing capabilities reduce data to unambiguous 0s and 1s. In cells, it’s not that simple...

Pure platinum with thin fixed foils of yttrium have been used to create the new nanoalloys that are ten times as effective as pure platinum in fuel cells. Credit: Mia Halleröd Palmgren CC BY 3.0

A new type of nanocatalyst can result in the long-awaited commercial breakthrough for fuel cell cars. Research results from Chalmers University of Technology and Technical University of Denmark show that it is possible to significantly reduce the need for platinum, a precious and rare metal, by creating a nanoalloy using a new production technique. The technology is also well suited for mass production.

“A nano solution is needed to mass-produce resource-efficient catalysts for fuel cells. With our method, only 1/10 as much platinum is needed for the most demanding reactions...

This is an artist’s impression of a quasar and neighboring merging galaxy. The galaxies observed by the team are so distant that no detailed images are possible at present. This combination of images of nearby counterparts gives an impression of how they might look in more detail.
Credit: The image was created by the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy using material from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope

A team of astronomers has discovered a new kind of galaxy which, although extremely old – formed less than a billion years after the Big Bang – creates stars more than a hundred times faster than our own Milky Way. The team’s discovery could help solve a cosmic puzzle – a mysterious population of surprisingly massive galaxies from when the universe was only about 10% of its current age...

Sequence showing two white dwarfs spiraling into one another, merging and then exploding as a supernova. As they spiral around each other, they emit gravitational waves causing them to grow ever closer. Credit: GSFC/Dana Berry.

A team of international astrophysicists led by ANU has shown how most of the antimatter in the Milky Way forms. Antimatter is material composed of the antiparticle partners of ordinary matter – when antimatter meets with matter, they quickly annihilate each other to form a burst of energy in the form of gamma-rays. Scientists have known since the early 1970s that the inner parts of the Milky Way galaxy are a strong source of gamma-rays, indicating the existence of antimatter, but there had been no settled view on where the antimatter came from.

ANU researcher Dr R...